THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY 
OF  WAR 


JOHN  T.  MacCURDY,  M.D. 

LECTURER  ON  MEDICAL  PSYCHOLOGY,  CORNELL 
UNIVERSITY  MEDICAL  SCHOOL,  NEW  YORK 


NEW \ORK 

E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


Copyright,  1918,  by 

E.  P.  DUTTO^  &  COMPANY 
411  Rights  Reserved 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 

The  conduct  of  modern  warfare  demands 
the  co-operation  of  practically  every  sci- 
ence. Engineering,  chemistry,  bacteriology 
and  agriculture  are  all  needed.  Even  the 
sanctity  of  home  is  invaded,  and  domestic 
economy  regulated.  But  behind  all  the  sci- 
ences stands  the  human  factor,  infinitely  the 
most  important  of  all.  On  the  behaviour 
of  the  private  in  the  trenches,  the  officer 
in  his  dug-out,  the  mechanic  at  his  lathe, 
and  the  woman  in  the  kitchen  depends  the 
victory.  What  science  can  explain  how  and 
why  they  act,  or  in  what  way  their  mental 
attitudes  are  altered?  Again,  before  hos- 
tilities emerge,  something  must  happen;  no 
meteorological  or  terrestrial  event  can 
cause  war,  it  must  be  a  change  in  the  mind 
of  man.     Are  the  forces  which  make  war 

5 


383085 


6  PREFACE 

and  decide  its  issue  to  lie  uninvestigated? 
Is  mankind  going  to  accept  this  stagger- 
ing burden,  or  attempt  solution  of  its  prob- 
lem merely  by  wishing  for  peace? 

There  is  a  science  ambitious  enough  to 
hope  for  an  answer  to  each  of  these  ques- 
tions. Unfortunately  phychology  is  young 
amongst  the  sciences,  and  must  therefore 
hope  rather  than  promise.  Perhaps,  were 
it  older,  there  might  be  no  wars.  It  is  with 
the  confidence  that  that  day  of  peace  will  be 
hastened  by  the  diffusion  of  a  psychological 
viewpoint  that  this  essay  has  been  written. 
There  can  be  little  claim  for  originality 
made,  as  its  aim  is  to  bring  before  the  lay 
reader  material  and  methods  of  investiga- 
tion that  are  normally  not  available  to  him. 
AVith  this  some  tentative  formulations  are 
given,  which  it  is  hoped  may  tend  to  corre- 
late the  hypotheses  that  are  reviewed. 

In  this  essay  an  analogy  between  war  and 
mental  disease  is  frankly  attempted.     No 


PREFACE  7 

medical  treatise  is  complete  without  a  dis- 
cussion of  treatment  for  the  ailment  whose 
pathology  and  symptoms  are  described. 
Some  readers  may  therefore  be  lured  into 
perusing  the  following  pages  with  the  hope 
that,  in  conclusion,  some  panacea  for  war's 
afflictions  may  be  offered.  When  one  con- 
siders, however,  that  this  spirit  of  strife  has 
always  been  an  intimate  part  of  the  soul 
of  man,  it  will  be  evident  that  no  simple 
formula  can  ever  dispel  it  from  his  life. 
Further  than  that,  it  is  essential  to  realise 
that  any  summary  effort  to  purge  the  world 
of  war  would  be  pernicious.  It  is  not  an 
isolated  phenomenon,  but  the  product  of 
the  best  and  the  worst  in  human  kind.  It 
would  be  a  sad  day  for  the  race  if  man  lost 
his  hardihood  and  ideas  of  loyalty  merely 
for  the  sake  of  peace.  His  psyche  must  be 
transformed,  not  syncopated.  This  change 
can  only  come  from  within,  and  only  when 
he  has  learned  his  essential  nature.     The 


8  PREFACE 

ambition  of  the  psychologist — a  fundamen- 
tally practical  man — is,  therefore,  to  set 
men  thinking  before  they  act.  Whether 
what  is  found  in  this  pamphlet  be  right  or 
wrong,  it  will  have  served  its  purpose  if  it 
stimulates  a  more  thoroughgoing  study  of 
war  on  the  part  of  the  average  citizen,  a 
more  rigorous  analysis  of  himself  and  his 
martial  feelings  than  he  has  previously  un- 
dertaken. 

The  bulk  of  this  essay  was  written  in 
America  in  the  summer  of  1916.  The  chap- 
ter on  America  is  essentially  a  postscript, 
added  in  London  a  few  weeks  after  Con- 
gress had  declared  a  state  of  war  to  exist. 

J.  T.  M. 

London,  May,  1917. 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I    Introduction  :  The  Problem  and 
ITS  Approach      .        .        .        .11 

II    Primitive  Instincts    .        .        .24 

III  Gregariousness    .        .        .        .52 

IV  Correlation    of    Primitive    In- 

stincts with  Gregariousness   .    78 


CHAPTER   I 

introduction:  the  problem  and  its 
approach 

There  is  probably  no  practice  to  which  \ 
man  in  all  his  history  has  clung  more  tena-  ' 
ciously  and  irrationally  than  he  has  to  the 
pursuit  of  war.  I  say  irrationally  because 
whatever  may  have  been  the  incidental  ben- 
efits to  individual  tribes  or  nations,  man- 
kind as  a  whole  has  surely  suffered  by  war. 
This  statement  is  really  not  debatable,  since 
its  proof  rests  on  arguments  that  are  tru- 
isms. Yet  war,  with  its  related  issues,  re- 
mains the  greatest  problem  man  has  to 
solve.  In  earlier  days  war  was  more  or  less 
chronic,  and  was  accepted  as  part  of  the 
lot  of  man;  now,  with  advance  of  knowl- 
edge and  a  growing  human  self-conscious- 
11 


12      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

ness,  its  irrationality  is  better  recognised. 
Perhaps  as  a  result  of  this  there  are  longer 
intervals  of  peace,  but  warfare  when  it  does 
come  is  so  much  the  more  bitter.  What 
shall  we  do  about  it?  Diplomacy  fails  to 
answer;  education  refuses  to  answer,  pre- 
ferring to  inculcate  the  spirit  of  war; 
any  religion  which  tries  to  answer  dies  of 
inanition.  Possibly  we  can  turn  to  those 
who  make  human  behaviour  the  object  of 
their  study,  those  whose  work  it  is  to  begin 
where  common  sense  ends,  those  whose  task 
is  to  teach  man  what  his  instincts  and  ten- 
dencies are.  With  this  knowledge  it  may 
be  that  he  will  see  the  way  his  footsteps  tend 

^and,   seeing,  choose  or  shun   that  course. 

fBy  investigating  the  world  around  him, 
man  has  found  that  he  can  largely  control 
his  environment.    War  shows  that  he  can- 

jiot  control  himself.  The  modern  advance 
of  the  physical  sciences  has  created  the  illu- 
sion that  human  safety,  human  salvation. 


INTRODUCTION  13 

depends  on  his  clinging  to  the  materialisti- 
cally obvious.  And  material  science  has 
made  of  modern  war  almost  a  biological 
suicide.  Is  it  not  time  to  seek  aid  of  psy- 
chology, the  least  material  and  most  prac- 
tical of  the  sciences,  and  study  man  him- 
self? 

As  chemistry  grew  out  of  alchemy,  so 
psychology  has  developed  from  metaphys- 
ics. Alchemy  consisted  largely  in  the 
ascription  of  abstract  qualities  to  material 
substances,  and  the  combining  of  these  sub- 
stances in  order  to  produce  other  abstrac- 
tions. Chemistry  was  born  when  men  ex- 
amined substances  to  find  out  what  quali- 
ties they  had — the  experimental  method.  So 
long  as  psychology  consisted  of  pasting  la- 
bels on  to  subjective  mental  phenomena  it 
worked  in  an  arid  and  barren  field.  How- 
ever, at  the  beginning  of  the  present  cen- 
tury, roughly  speaking,  it  was  realised  that 
there  was  an   objective  method  possible; 


14      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

namely,  the  observation  of  the  mind  in  dis- 
ease. It  was  then  discovered  that  beneath 
the  apparent  unity  and  consistency  of  con- 
sciousness there  lay  a  complicated  structure 
of  elements,  unrecognised  by  the  subject. 
One  combination  of  these  elements  in  due 
proportion  makes  what  we  call  a  normal 
man,  another  a  neurotic,  a  third  a  criminal, 
a  lunatic,  and  so  on.  Then  there  came  into 
being  what  is  practically  a  new  science. 
Dynamic  Psychology.  .  Perhaps  the  most 
important  achievement  of  this  new  study 
is  the  demonstration  that  transition  from 
mental  normality  to  abnormality  is  not  oc- 
casioned by  the  addition  of  something  from 
without,  but  by  a  change  in  combination 
or  relative  strengths  of  the  forces  that  are 
already  operative  in  "normal''  mental  life. 
In  war,  without  the  addition  of  any  extra- 
mental  factor,  the  behaviour  of  society  and 
its  members  is  suddenly  altered.^  The  fact 
that  this  alteration   is  sometimes  a  most 


INTRODUCTION  15 

profound  one  makes  the  analogy  with  the 
psychosis  all  the  more  exact.  It  becomes 
eAident  why  psychiatry  (using  the  term  in 
its  widest  and  most  correct  sense)  is  the 
most  promising  preparation  for  the  psycho- 
logical study  of  war.  The  psychiatrist  of 
the  future  will  be  an  exi)ert  in  the  affairs 
of  our  lives,  which  are  now  most  notori- 
ously left  to  chance. 

The  program  of  the  psychologist  is,  there- 
fore, to  discover,  if  possible,  what  tenden- 
cies of  the  normal  mind  upset  the  balance 
which  exists  apparently  in  times  of  peace, 
and  thereby  produce  war.  That  he  should  an- 
alyse the  problem  completely  and  estimate 
to  a  nicety  the  strength  of  every  instinct 
involved  is  to  ask  too  much  of  a  new  science. 
But  if  his  findings  give  hints  to  the  edu- 
cator or  law-maker  his  work  will  not  be  in 
vain. 

The  objection  that  any  present  discussion 
must  necessarily  be  focussed  on  the  Euro- 


16      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

pean  struggle  now  in  progress  and  inevita- 
bly be  coloured  by  prejudice  is  an  argument 
demanding  consideration.  One  must  be  an 
emotional  ament  or  dement  not  to  be  swayed 
in  his  sympathy  and  thoughts  to  one  side  or 
the  other.  And  history,  we  frequently  hear, 
will  tell  us  the  true  story.  That  she  will  be 
free  from  superficial  prejudices  is  probable; 
but  are  basic  prejudices  likely  to  die?  After 
a  lapse  of  nearly  a  thousand  years  we  hear 
one  historian  call  William  Wallace  a  patriot 
and  another  a  barbarous  outlaw.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  is  an  urgent  necessity  that 
the  problem  be  faced  now.  The  will  to  ac- 
tion, to  reform,  to  a  change  of  national  atti- 
tude is  now  present  when  the  carnage  of 
Europe  is  spread  before  our  eyes;  in  ten 
years'  time  we  shall  have  placidly  grouped 
the  War  of  1914  with  the  Napoleonic  Wars 
or  the  war  between  the  North  and  the  South 
in  the  United  States — something  that  can- 
not happen  again  because  the  ^vorld  is  dif- 


INTRODUCTION  17 

ferent  and  those  problems  have  disappeared. 
Yet  history  teaches  us  that  wars  do  not 
make  war  (else  they  would  be  continuous), 
but  rather  that  peace  makes  war.  This 
unpalatable  truth  can,  perhaps,  be  put  in  a 
less  paradoxical  form  by  saying  that  the 
forces  which  lead  to  war  are  engendered  and 
nourished  in  times  of  peace,  to  burst  out 
when  some  trivial  accident  provides  an  oc- 
casion. To  a  psychiatrist  accustomed  to  the 
defective  make-up  of  his  patient,  the  gradual 
accumulation  of  difficulties  and  the  final 
psychotic  explosion,  the  precipitating  factor 
seems  of  relative  insignificance  and  the  idea 
of  preventing  the  catastrophe  by  avoidance 
of  the  last  "cause''  or  by  mandate  is  pre- 
posterous. One  who  studies  war  psycho- 
logically will  probably  come  to  a  similar 
conclusion.  An  effort  to  avoid  interna- 
tional quarrels  and  agreements  to  arbitrate 
differences  would  be  at  best  palliative. 
What   we   call    "peace"  is,    apparently,    a 


\ 


18      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

\  period  during  wliicli'  forces  both  psycliic 
^  and  material  are  dammed  up  until  their 
I  accumulated  pressure  overpowers  the  judg- 
ment of  mankind.  Only  a  rigorous  anal- 
ysis of  national  or  racial  psychology  could 
lay  bare  the  factors  which  make  of  peace 
a  fool's  paradise.  If  these  were  found  we 
might  have  a  rational  hope  of  modifying 
these  factors  until  both  war  and  peace  were 
terms  of  merely  historic  interest. 

Among  the  difficulties  attending  this 
study  (and,  properly  speaking,  part  of  the 
problem)  are  the  preconceptions  about  war. 
War  is  a  disease ;  yet  we  hear  jingoes  refer 
to  it  as  a  normal  human  activity  or  the  rem- 
edy for  any  social  malaise.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  professional  pacifists  talk  belliger- 
ently about  its  horrors  as  if  they  could  wake 
the  public  to  a  realisation  of  evils  previously 
unrecognised,  and  with  it  all,  never  adduce 
a  single  essential  fact  unknown  to  society 
for  generations.    Were  it  not  for  the  intense 


INTRODUCTION  19 

gravity  of  the  problem,  one  would  be  tempt- 
ed to  laugh  at  the  seriousness  with  which, 
for  instance,  men  have  solemnly  proved  by 
elaborate  statistics  that  war  involves  eco- 
nomic losses.     How  would  a  physician  be 
welcomed  who  harangued  his  patient  on  the 
discomfort  and  danger  of  recurrent  chills 
in  malaria?     The  suspicion  seems  justified 
that  in  these  matters  we  share  the  belief  of 
the  savage   in  the  potency   of  curses.     In 
fact,  we  might  even  think  that  the  savage 
is  slightly  more  rational  than  we.     He  has 
his  theory  of  disease :  an  evil  spirit  possesses 
the  patient;  the  demon  must  be  exorcised. 
We,  on  the  contrary,  seem  to  deny  that  there 
is  a  disease.    We  are  asked  to  realize  that 
the   symptoms   are   unpleasant   and   avoid 
them  as  a  child  must  learn  to  avoid  fire. 
An  attempt  to  discover  the  cause  of  this  so- 
cial malady  would  doubtless  be  regarded  as 
mawkish  sentimentality  by  the  militarists, 
and  as  immoral  by  the  pacifists.    It  is  not 


20      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OP  WAR 

impossible  that  these  passionate  irrational- 
ities have  their  influence  in  the  production 
of  the  apparently  inevitable  cycles  of  war 
and  peace,  and  it  is  psychologically  inter- 
esting that  there  is  much  in  common  be- 
tween the  two  types.  Each  party  tries  to 
solve  a  delicate  situation  by  a  tour  de  force. 
Th5  inilitarist  sneers  at  diplomacy  of  any 
kind  and  seeks  to  adjust  every  difference  by 
the  sword,  while  the  pacifist  would  change 
human  nature  by  fiat.  The  futility  of  gain- 
ing world-wide  harmony  by  such  means  must 
be  painfully  obvious. 

Although  the  student  of  mental  disease 
may  offer  a  new  approach,  too  much  should 
not  be  expected  of  him,  for,  with  the  intro- 
duction of  abnormal  mass  action,  what  is 
practically  a  new  field  for  psychiatrists  is 
opened  up.  This  is  because  we  have  always 
assumed  as  a  standard  of  normality  for  the 
individual  an  essential  agreement  with  the 
average  conduct  of  the  community.     For 


INTKODUCTION  21 

this  reason  the  common  belief  of  fifty  or  a 
hundred  years  ago  may  be  a  delusion  if  en- 
tertained to-day,  when  superstitions  are 
dropping  out  of  everyday  life  and  out  of 
religions.  Therefore  we  cannot  say  that  the 
exhibitions  of  martial  lust,  which  any  per- 
son may  show,  stamp  him  as  insane — his 
neighbours  applaud  him.  Similarly  we  can- 
not be  psychiatrically  exact  if  we  speak  of 
a  nation  becoming  mad  if  it  embarks  on  a 
career  of  self-destruction  with  the  lure  of 
some  gain  trifling  in  comparison  with  the 
inevitable  sacrifice.  This  w^ould  be  an  ac- 
curate term  if  all  other  peoples  instinctively 
and  automatically  regarded  the  nation  as 
suffering  from  mental  disease  and  took  ac- 
tion in  accordance  with  that  view.  Obvi- 
ously we  are  dealing  with  an  analogy — not 
an  identity.  Where  the  cases  fail  of  identity 
is  in  the  lack  of  any  universal  standard  for 
social  behaviour.  With  a  problem  of  the 
magnitude  of  war  before  us,  however,  we 


22      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

must  remember  that  if  analogies  were  iden- 
tities the  problem  would  long  ago  have 
ceased  to  exist  as  such,  and  that  our  one 
ambition  is,  therefore,  to  compare  war  with 
other  normal  and  abnormal  phenomena,  re- 
membering always  the  danger  of  drawing 
too  rigid  inferences  and  accepting  hasty 
conclusions. 

This  is  a  practical  age  and,  particularly 
in  these  times  of  stress,  the  pragmatic  value 
of  any  proposition  is  more  apt  to  be  ques- 
tioned than  is  its  theoretic  worth.  It  is  only 
natural,  therefore,  that  the  reader  should 
ask,  "What  guarantee  does  the  psychiatrist 
offer  that  his  study  of  war  will  prove  of 
more  than  academic  value?" 

We  are  attempting  to  establish  an  analogy 
between  the  phenomena  of  war  and  the 
symptoms  of  mental  disease.  Investigation 
of  the  latter  field  leads  inevitably  to  the 
conclusion  that  prevention  of  insanity  de- 
pends on  education  in  its  truest  sense  of 


INTRODUCTION  23 

mind  training,  and  it  is  being  slowly  real- 
ised that  mental  hygiene  is  as  important  for 
human  welfare  as  is  the  care  of  the  body. 
Psychiatrists  are  not  hopeless  of  the  day 
coming  when,  thanks  to  a  sounder  knowl- 
edge of  himself,  man  may  be  relatively  free 
from  mental  infirmities.  It  is  only  by  edu- 
cation of  this  type  that  the  race  as  a  whole 
may  hope  to  rid  itself  of  the  pest  of  w^ar. 
Expectations  of  individual  and  social  health 
are  based  upon  programs  equally  ambitious 
and  equally  practical.  The  two  problems 
are  probably  inseparable.  Success,  in  either 
case,  depends  no  less  upon  willingness  to 
learn,  and  zeal  in  self-reform,  than  on  the 
investigation  which  must  precede  the  teach- 
ing. Preventive  psychiatry  is  beginning  to 
show  its  fruits;  it  is  therefore  not  illogical 
to  entertain  a  hope  that  similar  efforts  may 
ultimately  prevent  war. 


CHAPTER   II 

PRIMITIVE  INSTINCTS 

/  It  may  be  convenient  to  consider  the  phe- 
I  nomena  in  question  as  falling  into  two 
Lgroups,  just  as  historians  speak  of  remote 
and  immediate  causes.  In  times  of  peace 
we  have  rivalry  between  nations  expressing 
itself  in  ways  that  must  appear  to  any  ob- 
jective view  irrational.  Individuals  of  a 
foreign  country  are,  however,  not  consid- 
ered natural  enemies — it  is  only  the  groups 
as  a  whole  who  are  natural  rivals.  Injury 
to  a  foreigner  is  almost,  if  not  quite,  as  re- 
pugnant as  injury  to  a  native  citizen.  This 
rivalry  becomes  more  intense  until  with  a 
trifling  precipitating  factor  a  totally  new 
set  of  forces  comes  into  play.  What  can  be 
termed  nothing  less  than  blood-lust  springs 
apparently  out  of  nowhere,  and  upsets  many 

24 


PEIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  25 

normal  standards  of  conduct.  The  for- 
eigner becomes  the  scapegoat  for  his  race: 
he  must  be  killed  or  injured  in  any  possible 
way.  If  there  is  to  be  a  real  war  it  is  obvi- 
ous that  this  second  phase  has  to  develop, 
for,  unless  the  animosity  of  the  race  be- 
comes individual,  it  would  be  impossible  for 
a  civilised  man  to  deal  a  lethal  blow,  re- 
strained as  he  is  by  the  inhibitions  of  gen- 
erations. Moreover,  these  inhibitions  must 
be  lifted  to  the  point  where  killing  gives  sat- 
isfaction, else  there  will  be  a  woeful  lack 
of  the  enthusiasm  necessary  to  outweigh 
personal  sacrifice  and  sustain  the  war.  Ob- 
jectively viewed,  the  motto  of  nations  in 
time  of  peace  seems  to  be,  "Live,  but  do  not 
let  live,"  while  in  times  of  war  the  individ- 
ual says,  "Kill,  even  if  killed."  These  two 
factors — tribal  rivalry,  or  more  properly 
speaking,  tribal  jealousy — and  the  lust  of 
violence  are  each  held  by  different  schools 
of  dynamic  psychology  to  be  the  chief  cause 


26      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 


c 


of  war.  It  may  be  well  to  discuss  them  sep- 
arately, and  then  attempt  to  weigh  their 
relative  importance. 

i  Beginning  with  the  blood-lust  or  cruelty 
iimpulse,  it  must  be  obvious  that  this  phe- 
pomenon  is  not  confined  to  warfare.  It  is 
an  everyday  observation  that  the  behaviour 
of  an  American  college  student  is  more  bru- 
tal in  a  football  game  than  in  his  individual 
activities;  he  is  not  ashamed  of  it,  in  fact 
he  positively  enjoys  it.  More  notorious  is 
the  violence  of  mobs.  The  statistics  of 
lynching  show  with  what  lamentable  fre- 
quency the  innocent  suffer,  and  how  the  tor- 
ture inflicted  is  often  totally  dispropor- 
tionate to  the  gravity  of  the  offence.  These 
men  who  assume  the  role  of  judge  and  exe- 
cutioner are,  many  of  them,  of  the  highest 
character,  respected  and  loved  for  their 
kindliness  and  honour.  Plainly  in  mass  ac- 
y  tion  an  opportunity  is  given  for  the  devel- 
\ppment  of  justice  into  revenge,  and  revenge 


PKIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  27 

into  cruelty,  which  becomes  an  end  in  itself. J 
The  lyncher,  again,  is  not  ashamed  of  his 
deed,  but  takes  a  grim,  if  not  blithe  satis- 
faction in  it.*  The  greatest  inspired  psy- 
chologist of  all  time  has  given  a  true  picture 
of  the  lust  which  a  mob  can  call  to  life  in  its 
members — a  lust  which  has  no  connection 
with  the  original  common  impulse  of  the 
crowd. 

''Third  Citizen:  Your  name,  sir,  truly. 

Cinna:  Truly,  my  name  is  Cinna. 

First  at. :  Tear  him  to  pieces ;  he's  a  con- 
spirator ! 

Cm.:  1  am  Cinna  the  poet — I  am  Cinna 
the  poet. 

Fourth  at.:  Tear  him  for  his  bad  verses 
— tear  him  for  his  bad  verses ! 

Cin.:  I  am  not  Cinna  the  conspirator. 

*This  satisfaction  is  not  confined  to  those  taking- 
part  in  the  outrage.  The  notorious  Frank  case  is  an 
instance  in  point.  After  his  brutal  execution  men 
and  women  in  Georgia  eagerly  bought  photographs 
of  the  final  scene. 


28      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Fourth  at.:  It  is  no  matter,  his  name's 
Cinna ;  pluck  but  his  name  out  of  his  heart, 
and  turn  him  going. 

Third  Cit.:  Tear  him,  tear  him!  Come, 
brands,  ho!  firebrands:  to  Brutus',  to  Cas- 
sius';  burn  all:  some  to  Decius'  house,  and 
some  to  Casca's,  some  to  Tigurius':  away, 
go!" 

If  any  one  fancies  that  such  bloodthirsty 
furor  is  manufactured  by  the  mob  and  not 
merely  called  out  of  each  member  by  a 
special  stimulus,  let  him  remember  that  cru- 
elty and  bloodshed  have  some  attraction  for 
I  every  one  of  us.  The  degrees  of  dilution  or 
manner  of  disguise  may  vary;  it  may  be 
open  enjoyment  of  torture,  the  morbid  fa^ 
cination  of  melodrama  or  accidents  (perA 
haps  strongly  coloured  by  horror),  or  mere- 
ly a  love  of  the  swashbuckling  novel.  But 
(in  all  of  us  there  exists  deep  down  a  savage 
streak    which    evidences    itself    when    the 


PRIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  29 

proper  stimulus  is  applied.     We  are  never/ 
coldly,  judiciously  neutral  in  reaction.      / 
Much  of  contemporary  interest  in  the  psy- 
chology of  the  abnormal,  and  a  large  share 
of  the  impetus  recently  given  to  its  study, 
is  due  to  the  growth  of  a  school  which  uses 
a  method   termed  "psycho-analysis/^     The 
nature  of  this  technique  need  not  be  dis- 
cussed here,  but  it  should  be  mentioned  that 
those  who  use  it  claim  to  trace  all  mental 
abnormalities    to   unconscious    wishes    or, 
more    accurately,    unconscious    tendencies 
which  gain  indirect  and  symbolic  express- 
sion   in   neurotic   or   psychotic   symptoms. 
These  tendencies  are  presumed  to  be  un\ 
known  to  the  consciousness  of  the  individ-  \ 
ual  because  they  are  repugnant  to  his  per-  / 
sonality.    It  is  this  repugnance  which  causes" 
them  to  be  repressed  to  the  limbo  of  the  un- 
conscious, where  they  can  live  on  aw^ay  from 
contact  with  that  part  of  the  mind  which  is 
law-abiding,  altruistic  and  social  in  its  aims. 


30       THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

Not  unnautrally  these  unconscious  tenden- 
cies are  of  a  primitive,  lawless  and  individ- 
ualistic type,  and  include  such  impulses  of 
cruelty  and  violence  as  are  seen  in  war. 
/The  importance  of  these  tendencies  has 
'been   emphasised    by    two    psycho-analysts 
since  the  beginning  of  the  present  conflict. 
One  is  an  Austrian  and  one  an  Englishman, 
but  both  scrupulously  avoid  any  partizan 
discussion  of  the  war  now  in  progress.    Un- 
der the  headings  of  "The  Disillusionment  of 
War,"  Professor  Freud*  treats  this  topic 
without  any  reference  to  the  causation  of 
warfare,  focusing  his  attention  rather  on 
certain  of  its  phenomena.    His  tone  is  pes- 
simistic, somewhat  cynical,  and  not  out  of 
keeping  with  the  general  trend  of  the  Vien- 
na school  of  psycho-analysis. 

He  notes  first  a  destruction  of  the  com- 
mon feeling  of  humanity;  the  clearest  in- 

*S.  Freud :    "Zeitgemasses  iiber  Krieg'  und  Tod." — 
Imago,  Bd.  IV,  H.I. 


PRIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  31 

tellects  seem  distorted ;  and  we  find  Science, 
that  should  own  no  country,  being  prosti- 
tuted as  an  argument  in  favour  of  one  an- 
tagonist and  to  the  disparagement  of  an- 
other. We  are  not  surprised  when  conflicts 
arise  between  nations  or  tribes  of  widely 
varying  aims,  such  as  those  of  savages  and 
the  civilised  peoples;  but  had  come  to  be- 
lieve that  between  nations  with  common  cul- 
ture and  common  morality  it  was  hardly  to 
be  expected.  He  thinks  that  States  have 
demanded  a  high  standard  of  honour  on  the 
part  of  their  citizens,  and  that  now  the 
States  themselves  seem  to  have  abolished 
Buch  standards.  Facility  of  travel  has  made 
many  citizens  of  the  world;  our  literary, 
artistic  and  scientific  heroes  are  interna- 
tional. We  have  also  grown  to  believe  in 
the  restriction  of  war  to  the  destruction  of  , 
armies  and  the  immunity  of  non-combatants. 
Now  all  these  are  gone  as  if  they  had  been 
illusions,  and  their  place  is  taken  by  bit- 


32      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

terest    hate    of    one    people    for    another. 
States,  he  thinks,  have  monopolised  all  the 
wickedness  that  they  suppress  in  their  citi- 
zens.    Every  license  which  the  government 
restricts  in  the  individual  is  made  use  of  in 
war  by  the  State,  which,  in  the  meantime, 
demands  every  virtue  from  the  subject.  The 
States  cannot  be  defended  on  the  ground 
that  virtue  does  not  pay,  for  it  does  not  pay 
the  individual  very  often,  and  he  receives 
no  reward  from  society  to  compensate  him 
for  the  sacrifice  his  virtue  involves.     The 
loss  of  international  respect  is  naturally  re- 
flected in  individual  conduct,  for  our  inhibi- 
tions are  largely  occasioned  by  fear  of  so- 
ciety rather  than  "conscience."    When  this 
ban   is   removed    individuals   perform    un- 
thinkable acts.    The  disillusionments,  then, 
fall  into  two  groups:  first,  the  slight  de- 
cency we  see  exhibited  by  nations  in  their 
reciprocal  relations  in  contrast  to  the  vig- 
our of  the  demands  they  make  on  their  citi- 


•' 


PRIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  33 

zens;  and,  second,  the  general  brutality  of 
the  soldier,  who  is  such  a  gentleman  in  times 
of  peace. 

He  discusses  the  second  first,  and  to  ac- 
count for  it  recapitulates  the  development 
of  the  individual.  Man  begins  with  primi- 
tive, egoistic  tendencies,  which  are  neither 
good  nor  bad  except  in  so  far  as  their  exhi- 
bitions affect  society.  In  the  process  of 
development  these  assume  socialised  forms 
often  appearing  in  the  opposite  form  from 
the  original,  as  when  the  unusually  cruel 
child  becomes  an  unduly  sympathetic  man. 
Such  metamorphoses  are  the  work  of  two 
factors.  The  first  is  the  desire  to  be  loved, 
which  puts  a  premium  on  self-sacrifice  and 
makes  an  altruistic  act  pleasurable.  Begin- 
ning as  love  for  others  in  the  family,  this 
spreads  out  to  society  in  general  and  forms 
a  genuine  basis  for  virtuous  character.  The 
second  is  the  artificial  warping  of  native 
tendencies  by  education,  laws,  and  conven- 


U      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

tions,  which  is  natural  and  genuine  only  in 
so  far  as  there  is  an  hereditary  predisposi- 
tion to  such  adaptation.  Conduct  arti- 
ficially determined  may  be  superficially 
identical  with  the  more  genuine  type  but 
is  never  as  stable.  The  person  who  has 
been  affected  only  by  education  and  en- 
vironment is  naturally  good  only  when  it 
pays  to  be,  and  the  number  of  such  people 
is  probably  much  larger  than  is  generally 
supposed.  This  forced  virtue  really  amounts 
to  a  kind  of  hypocrisy,  although  it  is  not 
fully  conscious.  Freud  suggests  that  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  hypocrisy  may  be  necessary 
for  the  maintenance  of  our  cultured  level, 
which  is  probably  higher  than  the  average 
individual  capacity.  The  shattered  illusion, 
he  therefore  concludes,  is  the  belief  that  the 
bulk  of  mankind  ever  had  any  true  civilisa- 
tion. As  soon  as  governments  relax  their 
reciprocal  responsibilities,  the  governed  get 
an  outlet  for  their  original  impulses  on  the 


PRIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  85 

bodies  of  the  foe,  while  the  inhibitions  pro-^ 
ceed  relatively  uninterrupted  within  the 
State. 

As  to  the  hate  existing  between  nations, 
he  can  only  say  that  it  seems  that  common 
world  interests  are  not  strong  enough  to 
hold  national  passions  in  check.  There  is 
apparently  no  "fear  of  society''  in  this 
case.  He  admits  frankly  that  he  can  offer 
no  explanation  of  the  phenomenon,  merely 
remarking  that  it  seems  as  if  the  aggrega- 
tion of  men  simply  multiplied  their  primi- 
tive impulses. 

It  is  evident  from  the  above  that  Freud 
views  the  atrocities  of  the  war  as  more 
natural  than  the  civilised  behaviour  of 
man.  Although  accounting  for  war  phenom- 
ena alone,  it  would  perhaps  not  be  doing 
him  an  injustice  to  suggest  that  he  would 
view  violence  as  the  native  instinctive  meth- 
od of  settling  any  quarrel,  a  tendency  that 
is  lost  only  between  individuals  of  the  same 


36      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

state  where  society  has  put  a  ban  on  such 
methods.  This  is  equivalent  to  saying  that 
the  mystery  to  be  solved  is  the  behaviour 
of  peace  rather  than  the  incidents  of  war. 
In  passing  it  may  be  remarked  that  in  this 
we  have  an  example  of  a  frequent  type  of 
reasoning  encountered  in  many  psycho-ana- 
lytic writings.  A  symptom  is  traced  to 
some  unconscious  instinct,  which,  because 
it  is  deeply  rooted  and  long  lived,  is  stated 
to  be  part  of  the  "real''  individual.  A  some- 
what similar  argument  would  say  that  be- 
cause gill  breathing  is  the  most  primitive 
type  of  respiration,  because  every  foetus  has 
gills,  traces  of  which  persist  to  adult  life, 
and  because  these  traces  may  have  patho- 
logical development,  therefore  gill  breath- 
ing is  the  normal  respiration  for  man.  What 
the  individual  is  in  the  bulk  of  his  life 
should  constitute  his  true  nature.  In  the 
present  instance  we  should  not  forget  that, 
no  matter  what  man  may  have  been  pre- 


PRIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  37 

historically,  and  no  matter  what  character 
the  infant  may  have,  the  contemporary 
adult  is  by  constitution  a  unit  of  society, 
and  any  purely  individualistic  acts  he  may 
perform  must  be  regarded  as  abnormal. 

It  is  important  to  note,  however,  that 
Freud  correlates  the  atrocities  of  war  with 
the  lifting  of  national  ambitions. 

Using  somewhat  the  same  material,  an- 
other psycho-analyst,  Ernest  Jones,*  of 
London,  gives  a  wider  scope  to  his  specu- 
lation. "The  aim  of  this  essay  is  to  raise 
the  question  whether  the  science  of  Psy- 
chology can  ever  show  us  how  to  abolish 
war."  He  makes  no  claim  that  psychology 
can  do  so,  but  insists  that  its  methods  are 
essential  to  the  study  of  the  problem  because 
it  deals  with  the  mental  factors  that  de- 
termine all  decisions.  His  chief  argument  ^ 
is  the  claim  that  unconscious  wishes  distort  ^ 

*"Vrar  and  Individual  Psychology,"  The  Sociolog- 
ical Review,  July,  1915. 


38      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

rational  judgment.  This  phenomenon  is 
part,  perhaps,  of  the  essence  of  war,  as  an 
example  of  which  he  cites  the  difficulty  of 
ascertaining  the  facts  in  such  an  apparently 
simple  inquiry  as  the  immediate  cause  of 
the  present  war.  The  unconscious,  he  claims, 
can  only  be  studied  by  individual  psychol- 
ogy. This  term  he  uses  to  differentiate  the 
study  of  the  mental  phenomena  of  a  group 
from  that  of  separate  persons.  After  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  different  fields  he  dismisses 
social  psychology  as  a  superfluous  science, 
accepting  Trotter's*  view  that  the  reactions 
of  the  mass  are  the  sum  of  the  reactions  of 
the  units  in  the  mass,  and  that  man  invari- 
ably reacts  as  a  herd  animal  whether  in  a 
crowd  or  alone.  All  this  may  undoubtedly 
be  true  and  still  leave  room  for  a  psychology 
that  is  broader  than  the  "Individual  Psy- 
chology" developed  in  Jones'  paper,  for  this 
is  concerned  only  with  impulses  that  arise 

*"IIerd  Instinct,"  The  Sociological  Review,  1908. 


PRIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  39 

within  the  individual,  whereas  there  must 
surely  be  other  forces,  or  at  least  stimuli, 
that  are  external  to  him  in  their  origin. 
The  importance  of  this  objection  will  be 
discussed  later. 

He  begins  his  argument  in  favour  of  there 
being  deep-lying  mental  causes  for  war  by 
suggesting  that  man  may  not  be  able  to  live 
for  more  than  a  certain  period  without  war, 
and  that  he  possibly  prefers  that  form  of 
settling  disputes  to  peaceful  means.  This 
would  be  analogous  to  the  phenomenon 
recognized  by  many  novelists  that  an  un- 
conscious wish  of  the  individual  may  be 
objectively  obvious  but  subjectively  un- 
recognized. His  suspicion  of  man's  bias 
for  fighting  is  based  on  the  history  of  great 
wars  recurring  after  a  lapse  of  several  gen- 
erations, which  are  marked  by  a  revulsion 
towards  war.  This  last  statement  should 
not  pass  without  comment.  Such  a  psychic 
factor  as  this  revulsion  could  never  pass 


40      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

from  one  generation  to  tlie  next  if  it  were 
a  force  springing  up  within  the  individual 
and  not  something  handed  on  from  man  to 
man.  Here  is  an  admission  of  the  exist- 
ence of  what  is  essentially  a  social  factor, 
and  if  such  a  powerful  inhibitive  force  can 
have  its  origin  previous  to  a  complete  gen- 
eration, may  there  not  similarly  be  social 
tendencies  working  to  produce  war,  as  well 
as  those  of  the  unconscious  individual  type 
of  which  Jones  speaks? 

He  proceeds  to  argue  that  although  men 
act  abnormally  in  certain  "social  situa- 
tions," where  normal  standards  seem  to  be 
relaxed  (e.g.  in  mob  activities),  there  is  a 
certain  unity  of  aim  in  both  his  normal  and 
abnormal  behaviour.  In  normal  develop- 
.^rfient  a  primitive  tendency,  when  denied 
direct  expression  by  the  repressive  side  of 
one's  nature,  gains  outlet  in  a  social  or 
altruistic  form  which  is  somehow  symbolic 
Vof  the  latent,  more  individualistic  craving. 


PKIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  41 

For  example,  one  might  take  the  case  of  an 
unmarried  woman  in  whom  the  maternal 
instinct  can  gain  no  direct  outlet  without 
involving  anti-social  behaviour,  who  gets  a 
substitutive  outlet  through  nursing,  char- 
itable work,  etc.  In  such  a  case  the  object 
of  her  attention  receives  her  "maternal" 
care,  and  may  stand  in  the  unconscious  level 
of  her  mind  for  a  child.  Such  an  outlet  is 
termed  a  sublimation.  The  analysis  of  the 
development  of  so  many  activities  has 
shown  a  similar  mechanism  that  psycho- 
analysts believe  all  pursuits  are  of  this  type 
which  are  not  obviously  actuated  by  primi- 
tive instincts.  These  sublimations  giving 
only  indirect  expression  to  the  deeper  forces 
are  never  absolutely  stable,  and  tend  to 
break  down  with  a  return  to  the  more  primi- 
tive form  at  all  times.  When  such  a  lapse 
occurs  the  conduct  of  the  individual  is  to- 
tally different  from  that  of  his  everyday  life, 
but  as  the  sublimation  is  being  replaced  by 


42      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

directer  expression  of  its  more  primitive 
driving  impulse  there  is  still  the  unity  be- 
tween the  two  of  which  Jones  speaks.  It 
is  the  same  unconscious  wish  that  is  grat- 
ified in  each  case.  The  more  normal  activ- 
ity is  an  indirect,  distorted,  symbolic  outlet, 
its  successor  is  crude  and  direct.  This  ac- 
counts for  the  appalling  changes  of  charac- 
ter often  seen  in  senility  or  other  states  con- 
ducive to  mental  enfeeblement. 

He  does  not  pretend  to  give  any  final 
explanation  of  the  highly  frequent  phenom- 
enon (of  which  many  examples  will  occur 
to  the  reader)  of  mass  action  favouring 
cruder  expressions  of  primitive  cravings. 
He  does  make  a  clever  suggestion,  how- 
ever. Sublimations,  he  says,  are  largely  in- 
dividual developments.  That  is,  each  per- 
son works  out  his  particular  way  of  social- 
izing his  individualistic  tendencies,  while 
the  unconscious  wishes,  being  primitive,  are 
common  to  all  the  unite  in  a  given  group. 


PEIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  43 

The  mass  action  proceeding,  therefore,  as  a 
sum  of  all  the  individual  tendencies  present, 
is  made  up  of  over-determined  ^'uncon- 
scious"  forces,  while  the  sublimations,  being 
individual,  tend  to  neutralise  one  another, 
because  they  are  individual  and  may  be 
widely  different  from  the  other.  Resultant 
action  springs  from  the  wishes  that  are 
common  to  all.  This  argument  is  plausible; 
and  it  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
this  may  well  operate  as  a  contributing  fac- 
tor in  mob  suggestion;  but,  as  we  shall  see 
presently,  there  are  probably  other  and 
more  important  explanations  of  these  phe- 
nomena. 

Jones  says,  then,  as  does  Freud,  that  we 
should  not  consider  the  atrocities  of  war  as 
due  to' war  iSelf,  but  rather  that  it  is  one 
of  a  number  of  conditions  which  favour  the 
unleashing  of  tendencies  always  latent  in 
civilised  men.    

But  Jone«  goes  further  still,  suggesting 


44      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

that  the  impulse  to  release  these  tendencies 
may  be  one  of  the  important  causes  of  war 
itself.  ^^The  essence  of  war  surely  consists 
in  an  abrogation  of  standards  of  conduct 
approved  of  by  the  ethical  sense  of  commu- 
nities. By  this  is  meant  that  in  war  an 
attempt  is  made  to  achieve  a  given  purpose 
by  means  which  are  otherwise  regarded  as 
reprehensible."  An  individual  in  such  a 
situation  is  ashamed  and  attempts  to  excuse 
himself  with  all  sorts  of  tenuous  proofs  of 
the  justifiability  of  his  actions.  This  is,  he 
thinks,  true  of  the  nations  now  at  war. 
Although  each  insists  that  the  war  was  inev- 
itable, each  is  unwilling  to  assume  respon- 
sibility for  its  actual  inception.  It  is 
generally  held  that  in  war  the  ends  justify 
the  means,  while  Jones  boldly  suggests  that 
perhaps  it  is  really  the  means  which  are 
primary  and  that  the  ends  are  found  to 
justify  them.  .  He  quotes  Nietzsche  quite 
aptly  for  his  argument :  "Ye  say  that  it  is  the 


PKIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  45 

good  cause  which  halloweth  every  war?  I 
say  unto  you :  It  is  the  good  war  which  hal- 
loweth every  cause."  It  is  interesting  that 
each  nation  imputes  such  motives  to  its  foes. 
It  is  easier  for  an  enemy  to  see  a  disagree- 
able characteristic  than  it  is  for  the  pos- 
sessor of  it. 

The  problem  may  then  be  stated,  he  pro- 
2eeds,  as  the  determination  of  the  relative 
mportance  of  the  conscious  and  unconscious 
motives  in  the  initiation  of  war.  As  con- 
scious motives  may  be  all  grouped  under  the 
term  patriotism,  he  analyses  this  complex  of 
feelings.  The  relation  of  the  individual  to 
his  country  is  an  outgrowth  of  the  relation- 
ships existing  in  childhood  in  the  home. 
These  centre  around  three  effective  com- 
plexes :  the  relationships  of  the  child  to  his 
mother,  his  father  and  himself.  Generally 
the  country  wins  in  adult  life  the  devotion 
originally  given  the  mother,  more  rarely  the 
state  stands  in  a  paternal  position  (such  as 


46      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

in  patriarchal  governments).  The  oppor- 
tunities for  unconscious  reinforcement  of 
patriotic  impulses  with  this  history  is  ob- 
vious to  any  one  familiar  with  psycho- 
analysis and  is  well  shown  in  the  "self 
relationship,  where  the  individual  identifies 
the  country  with  himself,  is  personally 
inflated  or  depleted  with  its  success  or 
failure.  The  development  of  those  uncon- 
scious forces  has,  probably,  a  great  deal  to 
do  with  one's  attitude  towards  war,  whether 
one  is  a  pacifist  or  a  firebrand,  just  as  other 
characteristics  have  their  unconscious  deri- 
vation and  history.  But  to  urge  that  all 
patriotic  impulses  may  be  thus  disposed  of 
is  too  sweeping  a  generality.  This  is  well 
shown  by  Jones'  suggestion  that  national 
make-up  may  be  the  outcome  of  the  type  of 
family  life  existing  in  the  nation.  If  there 
is  a  similarity  in  homes,  it  is  surely  self- 
evident  that  this  is  due  to  conformity  to  a 
national  standard  of  domestic  life  or  else  the 


PRIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  47 

product  of  a  stupendous  coincidence  of 
identical,  independent  development.  In  his 
endeavour  to  make  unconscious  motives 
responsible  for  everything  he  has  succeeded 
in  putting  the  cart  before  the  horse.  It  is 
only  fair  to  add,  however,  that  a  uniformity 
of  home  life  may  well  act,  secondarily,  in 
reinforcing  a  homogenity  of  national  con- 
duct and  thought.  But  primary  it  can  never 
be. 

Many  of  the  conscious  motives  are,  then, 
according  to  Jones,  essentially  unconscious 
if  their  history  be  traced  far  enough  back. 
The  undoubtedly  unconscious  motives  which 
find  an  outlet  in  war  centre  around  the  pas- 
sions for  cruelty,  destruction,  lust  and  loot. 
He  claims  that  no  army  has  ever  been  with- 
out one  or  more  of  these,  which  is  probably 
true.  He  cites  the  orgies  of  destruction 
indulged  in  by  Cromwell's  Puritan  army. 
That  the  innate  desire  for  outlet  of  these 
passions  is  mainly  responsible  for  war  he 


48      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

merely  suggests;  that,  at  least,  they  con- 
stantly reinforce  the  more  conscious  pa- 
jtriotic  motiyes  he  confidently  asserts. 

As  to  the  future,  he  is  wise  enough  not  to 
offer  any  panacea.  The  few  generalities 
offered  are  worthy  of  attention.  In  the  first 
place  he  deprecates  any  attempts  to  abolish 
war  by  forcible  repression  of  primitive  in- 
stincts. Psycho-analysis  tends  to  show  that 
repression  leads  only  to  a  temporary 
damming  up  of  such  forces,  with  later  ex- 
plosions, unless  the  opportunities  for  sub- 
limated outlets  be  favourable.  He  suggests 
that  it  may  be  possible  that  the  sublimating 
capacity  of  man  is  now  at  its  greatest  height, 
which,  if  true,  would  certainly  mean  that 
civilisation  is  maintained  only  by  virtue  of 
the  safety  valve  of  war,  although,  strange  to 
say,  he  does  not  put  forward  this  hypothesis 
as  such.  What  he  recommends  is  a  more 
intelligent  treatment  of  primitive  instincts, 
the  substitution  of  open-eyed  study  and  con- 


PRIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  49 

trol  of  social  problems  rather  than  blind 
legal  negations  which  tend  to  increase  social 
unrest.  As  an  example  of  what  such  a  policy 
can  do  in  preventing  unrest  he  cites  the  suc- 
cess of  the  modern  British  colonial  policy. 
As  a  corollary  of  this  he  mentions  the  grant- 
ing of  outlet  to  these  instincts  in  a  less  harm- 
ful form  than  war.  Naturally  he  gives  credit 
here  to  William  James,  who  first  made  this 
suggestion  in  his  essay  on  "The  Moral  Equiv- 
alents of  War." 

In  conclusion,  with  a  few  striking  sen- 
tences he  gives  a  picture  of  the  benefits  of 
war  as  a  national  and  individual  stimulus 
and  an  agency  bringing  man  closer  to  the 
essential  realities  of  life.  He  does  not  sug- 
gest that  these  benefits  have  any  causal 
relation  to  war.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  we 
can  sum  np  Jones'  contribution  as  an  effort 
to  establish  the  violent,  primitive  instincts  of 
man,  usually  unconscious,  as  an  important, 
if  not  the  primary,  cause  of  war. 


50      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

It  is  striking  that  in  this  able  paper  no 
mention  is  made  of  the  phenomena  of  inter- 
national hostility,  the  jealousy  which  is 
exhibited  in  times  of  peace.  Yet  it  is  a  fact 
^"hich  historians  constantly  impress  upon 
(their  readers  that  prior  to  a  warthe^  is 
\always  a  tension  gradually  increasing  be- 
tween rival  nations,  which  finally  culminates 
fen  the  outbreak  of  hostilities.  If  the  forces 
Jones  speaks  of  were  the  only  ones  at  work, 
the  increasing  tension  would  always  be  an 
internal  one,  an  unrest  from  the  pent-up 
lawless  energies  of  the  citizens  which  would 
finally  seek  an  outlet  in  indiscriminate 
violence,  not  necessarily  focused  on  one  par- 
jticular  foe.  In  other  words,  who  the  enemy 
should  be  would  be  a  matter  of  accident. 
Such  unconscious  motives  as  Freud  and 
Jones  discuss  could  easily  account  for  the 
choice  of  war  in  time  of  crisis,  for  clinical 
experience  teaches  us  that  in  any  occasion 
of  mental  stress  the  primitive  tendency  is 


PRIMITIVE  INSTINCTS  51 

most  apt  to  be  followed.  We  might,  there- 
fore, leave  this  type  of  psychological  ap- 
proach with  the  suggestion  that  unconscious 
impulses  may  more  than  any  other  influ- 
ences be  responsible  for  the  actual  initiation 
of  war  and  the  abnormal  behaviour  of  the 
antagonists.  There  remain  to  be  discussed 
the  psychological  factors  which  engender  the 
international  animosities  and  antagonisms 
in  times  of  peace. 


CHAPTER  III 

GREGAEIOUSNESS 

(  International  rivalry  is,  apparently, 
never  friendly ;  in  fact,  it  seems  to  be  invari- 
ably characterised  by  jealousy,  often  by  bit- 

\  terness.  Community  of  interest  is  only  a 
phrase,  and  never  sought  in  practice.  If 
nation  A  develops  trade  in  some  com- 
mercially isolated  district,  the  citizens  of 
nation  B  do  not  see  in  this  a  gain  for  their 
own  merchants  in  the  opening  up  of  a  new 
outlet  for  business,  but  view  the  growth  with 
alarm  and  bend  their  energies  towards 
blocking  the  foreigner's  efforts  as  much  or 
more  than  they  extend  their  own.  Similarly 
a  new  warship  or  new  military  program  is 
regarded  with  an  almost  paranoic  suspicion 
by  all  possible  military  rivals.     All  this  is 

53 


GREGARIOUSNESS  53 

obviously  irrational,  and  is  certainly  a  prob- 
lem to  be  studied  by  psychopathologists.  If 
the  average  citizen  is  asked  why  this  situa- 
tion exists,  he  gives  one  of  two  answers: 
either,  "It  is  silly,  and  we  shouldn't  do  it  any 
more;"  or,  "History  teaches  us  that  the  na- 
tion which  is  not  suspicious  is  destroyed." 
The  first  reply  is  a  form  of  the  pacifist's  fiat 
that  human  nature  be  changed.  The  second 
makes  a  pretence  of  rationality.  But  does 
man  listen  to  History?  Have  the  yoking  of 
force  and  suspicion  ever  led  to  anything  but 
disaster,  even  after  a  short  triumph?  Surely 
here,  as  elsewhere,  man  learns  what  he 
washes  to  learn;  some  powerful  instinct 
urges  him  the  way  he  goes. 

War  is  never  far  from  consciousness  when 
such  suspicious  rivalry  is  in  the  air.  What 
is  the  attitude  of  any  nation  towards  war  in 
time  of  peace?  War,  of  course,  is  damnable, 
all  readily  agree.  But  this  is  war  as  an 
abstraction.     What  do  the  citizens  of  any 


54      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OP  WAR 

given  country  think  of  their  own  ivars?    All 
are  excusable,   some  justifiable   and  some 
glorious.    Every  thinking  man  will  admit  afc 
least    these    differences,    and    here    there 
/"emerges  a  not  unimportant  fact.    Tjie  wars) 
I    that  fire  the  national  imagination  are  those  | 
\  in  which  the  nation's  existence  was  threat-^^ 
Njened.    The  same  is  true  of  national  heroes : 
no  heterogeneous   English   gathering  ever 
waxed  enthusiastic  over  the  name  of  Dar- 
win,   nor   did   a    German   crowd   applaud 
Goethe  to  the  skies.*    It  is  the  military  hero 

*It  is  true  that  a  few  years  ago  a  large  plebiscite, 
instituted  by  a  Parisian  newspaj)er,  placed  Pasteur 
first  in  answer  to  the  question,  "Who  was  the  great* 
est  Frenchman?"  But  the  form  of  this  question 
naturally  calls  for  an  objective,  intellectual  judgment. 
The  voter  probably  put  himself  in  the  place  of  a  for- 
eigner, trying  to  decide  what  Frenchman  had  done 
most  for  the  world.  Had  the  question  been,  "As  a> 
Frenchman,  whom  do  you  admire  m:Ost?"  the  vote 
•would  probably  have  placed  Napoleon  first,  a  sim- 
ilar plebiscite  had  some  years  before.  Emotional 
feelings  are  more  dynamic  than  intellectual  judg- 
m^ents,  as  every  observer  knows.  It  is  safe  to  guess 
that  many  more  Frenchmen  to-day  visit  the  tomb  of 
Napoleon  than  the  grave  of  Pasteur. 


GREGARIOUSXESS  55 

who  is  the  national  hero,  and  here  again  a 
discrimination  can  be  made.  It  is  not  the 
genius  who  fought  in  some  small  campaign 
that  stirs  the  blood,  but  the  man  of  force 
who  saved  the  country  or  founded  the  empire. 
The  point  of  these  observations  is  this :  The^ 
attitude  of  a  people  towards  its  wars  is  not 
a  glorification  of  war,  but  rather  an  en- 
thusiasm for  itself  as  a  nation.  War  marks 
the  highest  level  of  national  consciousness 
that  is  ever  reached.  In  earlier  days,  when' 
primitive  man  had  not  known  the  advan- 
tages of  herd  life  for  very  long,  friction  with 
other  tribes  over  hunting  grounds  or  other 
coveted  possessions  must  have  made 
strangers  appear  like  those  of  another 
species  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Ad- 
vance of  knowledge  has  taught  that  all  the 
members  of  the  species  Homo  sapiens  are 
men,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  that  knowl- 
edge is  a  vital  part  of  our  automatic  mental 
life.    It  is  one  thing  for  us  to  recognise  in 


56      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

an  animal  identity  of  anatomical  structure, 
and  another  to  feel  that  he  is  like  ourselves. 
Without  this  instinctive  bond,  every 
stranger,  every  member  of  every  other  group, 
must  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  arouse  in  us 
the  biological  reaction  appropriate  towards 
a  different  species.  We  have  sympathy  for  a 
dog,  an  animal  useful  to  us,  but  we  kill 
wolves,  snakes  and  insects  without  any 
revulsion  of  feeling  for  the  act.  Interna- 
tional relationships  are  probably  largely 
traceable  to  this  feeling  of  specific  differ- 
ences and  to  the  deep-lying  instinct  for 
preservation  of  the  species,  distorted  in  this 
case  to  the  preservation  of  what  is  at  most 
only  a  variety. 

This  phenomenon  of  group  allegiance  is, 
of  course,  a  commonplace  to  sociologists. 
One  might  hazard  the  generality  that  with- 
out it  there  would  be  no  large  political  or 
social  problems.  It  is  this  instinct  which 
cements  the  labour  unions,  maintains  re- 


I 


GREGARIOUSNESS  57 

ligious  factions.  Here  we  have  what  is,  per- 
haps, the  greatest  paradox  of  human  nature. 
The  forgetting  of  self  in  devotion  to  others, 
altruism  or  loyalty,  is  the  essence  of  virtue. 
At  the  same  time,  precisely  the  same  type  of 
loyalty  that  makes  of  a  man  a  benefactor  to 
all  mankind  can  become  the  direst  menace 
to  mankind  when  focused  on  a  small  group. 
The  bigot  can  with  all  sincerity  and  con- 
sciousness of  high  motive  enslave  thought 
and  retard  science  for  centuries.  Similarly 
the  labour  leader,  in  his  zeal  to  better  the 
condition  of  his  fellow  unionists,  will  shake 
the  foundations  of  industry.  The  reader  will 
call  to  mind  countless  examples  having  this 
in  common,  that  the  small  group  calls  forth 
a  loyalty  which  is  inimical  to  larger  groups. 
In  the  case  of  war  we  have  national  loyalty 
destroying  the  civilisation  of  all  mankind. 

There  is  but  one  psychologist  who  has  seen 
the  potentiality   of   man's   gregariousness. 


58     -THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

This  is  Wilfrid  Trotter.*  The  substance  of 
his  claims  is  that  one  can  understand  many 
anomalies  of  man's  conduct  by  regarding 
him  as  a  herd  animal:  that  is,  not  only  an 
animal  who  lives  gregariously,  but  one  whose 
instinct  it  is  to  react  with  the  herd.  He  is 
deaf  to  the  voice  of  one  without  the  herd,  but 
infinitely  suggestible  to  influences  coming 
from  within  it.  In  this  way  herd  traditions 
and  herd  thoughts  are  superior  in  their  in- 
fluence to  individual  reason,  and  the  strug- 
gle between  these  two  he  assigns  as  the  cause 
for  most  human  ills  that  are  not  frankly 
physical  in  origin. 

f  He  says  that  there  are  three  great  types 
of  development  in  herd  life:  that  of  the 
animals,  who  unite  for  aggression  as  do 
wolves ;  that  of  the  species  like  sheep,  whose 
cohesion  gives  protection;  and  finally,  the 
highest  degree  of  gregariousness,  which  he 


V 


^Instincts  of  the  Herd  in  Peace  and  in  War.    Fisher 
Unwin  &  Co.,  London.    V'\^ 


GREGARIOUSNESS  59 

terms  the  socialised  type,  exemplified  in  the 
society  of  ants,  or  better  still  by  bees.  Each 
kind  of  specialisation  is  represented  in  man, 
and  has  its  peculiar  mental  make  up  exhib- 
ited both  in  the  reactions  of  the  mass  and 
the  individual.  Each  tends  in  human  devel- 
opment to  exclude  the  others  and  produce  a 
type  that  is  almost  a  specific  variation  bio- 
logically. This  leads  to  lack  of  sympathy 
and,  if  the  interests  of  two  "herds"  come  into 
collision,  a  deep  hostility. 

In  his  original  papers,*  he  showed  how 
gregariousness  leads  inevitably  to  unques- 
tioning acceptance  of  the  herd  dogma,  and 
that  this  works  strongly  against  that  sensi- 
tiveness to  experience — open  mindedness — 
w^hich  is  necessary  for  progress.  In  bio- 
logical terms,  the  aggregation  of  units  in  the 
herd,  which  ought  to  facilitate  variation, 
actually  inhibits  variation.  He  concluded, 
therefore,  that  the  human  race  was  doomed 

*The  Sociological  Review,  1908  and  190y. 


60      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

to  extinction  unless  some  new  factor  should 
come  into  play.  Hints  as  to  the  nature 
of  this  force  were  extremely  vague.  He  now 
states  that  this  must  be  an  understanding 
of  man's  psychology  in  the  biological  sense, 
and  a  conscious  guidance  along  the  path  of 
evolution  on  which  he  has  entered  only  to 
halt  long  before  the  goal  is  reached.  Both 
of  these  definite  additions  to  his  theory  ap- 
pear prominently  in  his  discussion  of  war. 

In  this  book  there  are  no  statements  as  to 
the  causation  of  warfare  in  general,  but  only 
arguments  about  the  present  conflict.  The 
author  frankly  admits  that  prejudice  is  un- 
avoidable, and  claims  no  immunity  from 
that  vice  in  his  discussion.  He  places  entire 
responsibility  for  the  war  on  Germany,  giv- 
ing no  suggestion  as  to  how  England  could 
have  had  a  hand  in  producing  the  situation 
which  made  war  inevitable.  Such  criticisms 
as  he  directs  against  England  concern  only 
her  internal  politics  and  social  constitution. 


GREGARIOUSNESS  61 

If  there  be  a  neutral  bloodless  enough  to 
qualify  as  an  impartial  critic,  and  if  he 
dispute  the  validity  of  such  claims,  he  could 
still  profit  from  Trotter's  work.     One  does 
not  need  to  sympathise  with  his  antagonism 
to  Germany  to  get  helpful  material  from  his 
essay.     It  is  only  necessary  to  agree  that 
forces  such  as  he  alleges  to  be  operative  there 
w^ould  probably  produce  war,  to  gain  a  hint 
as  to  what  underlies  warlike  impulses  in 
general.    Similarly  whether  English  society 
has  the  inherent  virtue  he  ascribes  to  it  or 
not,  is  for  our  present  jjurposes  immaterial. 
In  the  type  of  herd  he  describes  as  British 
would  certainly  be  found  a  people  whose 
power  could  only  be  a  blessing  to  the  world. 
In  1908  Trotter  wrote  as  follows — 
"The  solutions  [of  the  problem  of  recon- 
ciling individual  desires  or  experience  with 
herd   suggestion]    by   indifference   and   by 
rationalisation,  or  by  a  mixture  of  these  two 
processes,  are  characteristic  of  the  great 


62      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

class  of  normal,  sensible,  reliable  middle 
age,  with  its  definite  views,  its  resiliency  to 
the  depressing  influence  of  facts,  and  its  gift 
for  forming  the  backbone  of  the  State.  In 
them  herd  suggestion  shows  its  capacity  to 
triumph  over  experience,  to  delay  the  evolu- 
tion of  altruism,  and  to  obscure  the  existence 
and  falsify  the  results  of  the  contest  between 
personal  and  social  desires.  That  it  is  able 
to  do  so  has  the  advantage  of  establishing 
society  with  great  firmness,  but  it  has  also 
the  consequence  of  entrusting  the  conduct  of 
the  State  and  the  attitude  of  it  towards  life 
to  a  class  which  their  very  stability  shows 
to  possess  a  certain  relative  incapacity  to 
take  experience  seriously,  a  certain  relative 
insensibility  to  the  value  of  feeling  and  to 
suffering,  and  a  decided  preference  for  herd 
tradition  over  all  other  sources  of  conduct. 
"Early  in  history  the  bulk  of  mankind 
must  have  been  of  this  type,  because  ex- 
perience, being  still  relatively  simple,  would 


GREGARIOUSNESS  63 

have  but  little  suggestive  force,  and  would 
therefore  readily  be  suppressed  by  herd  sug- 
gestion. There  would  be  little  or  no  mental 
conflict,  and  such  as  there  was  would  be 
readily  stilled  by  comparatively  simple 
rationalisations.  The  average  man  would 
then  be  happy,  active,  and  possessed  of  an 
inexhaustible  fund  of  motive  and  energy, 
capable  of  intense  patriotism  and  even  of 
self-immolation  for  the  herd.  The  nation 
consequently,  in  an  appropriate  environ- 
ment, would  be  an  expanding  one  and  rend- 
ered ruthless  and  formidable  by  an  intense, 
unshakable  conviction  of  its  divine  mission. 
Its  blindness  towards  the  new  in  experience 
would  keep  its  patriots  narrow  and  fierce, 
its  priests  bigoted  and  bloodthirsty,  its 
rulers  arrogant,  reactionary  and  overconfi- 
dent. Should  chance  ordain  that  there  arose 
no  great  environmental  change,  rendering 
necessary  great  modifications,  such  a  nation 
would  have  a  brilliant  career  of  conquest,  as 


64      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

has  been  so  often  demonstrated  by  history. 
"Among  the  first-class  Powers  to-day  the 
mentally  stable  are  still  the  directing  class, 
and  their  characteristic  tone  is  discernible 
in  national  attitudes  towards  experience,  in 
national  ideals  and  religions,  and  in  national 
morality.  It  is  this  possession  of  the  power 
of  directing  national  opinion  by  a  class 
which  is  in  essence  relatively  insensitive 
towards  new  combinations  of  experience; 
this  persistence  of  a  mental  type,  which  may 
have  been  adequate  in  the  simpler  past,  into 
a  world  where  environments  are  daily  be- 
coming more  complex — it  is  this  survival,  so 
to  say,  of  the  wagoner  upon  the  footplate  of 
the  express  engine,  which  has  made  the 
modern  history  of  nations  a  series  of  such 
breathless  adventures  and  hairbreadth 
escapes.  To  those  who  are  able  to  view 
national  affairs  from  an  objective  stand- 
point, it  is  obvious  that  each  of  these  escapes 
might  very  easily  have  been  a  disaster,  and 


GREGARIOUSNESS  65 

that  sooner  or  later  one  of  them  must  be 
such." 

In  his  later  work  Trotter  ascribes  these- 
primitive  characteristics  more  specifically 
to  the  aggressive  or  wolf  gregariousness  and, 
needless  to  say,  he  finds  them  highly  devel- 
oped in  the  Germans.  This  race,  he  thinks, 
demonstrate  the  validity  of  his  claim  that 
great  development  can  be  obtained  by  con- 
scious direction  of  what  is  the  evolutionary 
tendency,  although,  of  course,  he  looks  on 
lupine  gregariousness  as  inimical  to  civiliza- 
tion as  a  whole,  and  therefore  bound  to  fail 
in  the  end.  It  may  seem  grotesque  to  attempt 
an  analogy  between  the  society  of  the  wolf 
and  that  of  any  group  of  men,  and  it  would 
probably  be  impossible  to  present  Trotter's 
arguments  sympathetically  without  quota- 
tion in  extenso.  Assuming  this  risk,  how- 
ever, what  he  considers  to  be  the  lupine 
characteristics  in  man  may  be  enumerated. 

Wolves  band  themselves  together  purely 


66      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

for  the  sake  of  the  advantages  the  pack 
enjoys  over  the  individual  in  hunting.  Wolf 
gregariousness  is,  therefore,  founded  on 
aggression.  Trotter  notes  that  the  Germans 
are  constantly  taking  as  their  ideal  the 
civilisations  which  in  the  past  were  built  on 
aggression.  Not  unnaturally  he  points  to 
the  fact  that  peoples  of  the  "socialised"  (the 
bee)  type,  such  as  Italians  and  Americans, 
have  not  been  impressed  by  German  propa- 
ganda, while  the  bloodthirsty  Turks  and 
Bulgarians  have  espoused  the  Teutonic 
cause.  ^  He  finds  as  a  national  characteristic, 
pervading  all  classes,  a  naive  arrogance 
usually  displayed  in  florid  and  banal  meta- 
phors. The  simple,  honest  conviction  of 
being  God's  chosen  people  furnishes  a  great 
stimulus  in  attack.  He  claims  they  are 
incapable  of  grasping  the  idea  that  other 
people  may  be  differently  constituted  from 
themselves;  that  they  are  incredulous  of 
altruism  ever  being  a  real  motive,  and  rely 


GREGARIOUSNESS  67 

on  intimidation  rather  than  understanding 
in  their  relations  with  other  nations.  It  is 
to  these  tendencies  that  he  ascribes  the  series 
of  diplomatic  blunders  which  resulted  in 
Germany  facing  a  coalition  of  tremendous 
strength.  Xot  unusually  he  views  the  ap- 
parent determination  of  the  General  Staff 
to  keep  constantly  on  the  offensive  as  an 
evidence  of  aggression  being  the  keynote  of 
their  union.  He  even  risks  the  prediction 
that  there  will  be  a  collapse  so  soon  as 
offence  is  no  longer  possible.  There  are 
certain  traits  shown  in  their  internal  rela- 
tionships which  Trotter  regards  as  distinc- 
tive of  the  lupine  type.  He  speaks  first  of 
the  flagrant  cruelty  and  harshness  exhibited 
by  the  individual  German  in  times  of  peace 
as  well  as  in  war.  The  same  habit  he 
observes  in  the  treatment  of  their  colonies. 
As  a  corollary  to  this  the  individual  German 
shows  a  subserviency  to  his  superior  and  a 
favourable  reaction  to  rigorous,  even  phys- 


68      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

ical  discipline,  that  would  to  other  peoples 
be  intolerable.  This  is  likened  to  the 
behaviour  of  the  dog,  who  reacts  so  much 
more  satisfactorily  to  a  whipping  than  does 
a  horse,  for  instance.  Finally,  Trotter  makes 
much  of  the  German  tendency  to  adopt  war 
cries  and  shibboleths  {e.g.  "Gott  strafe  Eng- 
land'' ) ,  any  attempt  to  implant  which  on  the 
English  meets  with  failure.  This  successful 
bolstering  up  of  the  national  morale  with 
catch  phrases  he  cosiders  directly  anal- 
ogous to  the  howl  of  wolf  pack,  which 
inspirits  and  unites  it  in  hunting. 

From  a  scientific  rather  than  a  national 
standpoint  it  is  regrettable  that  Trotter 
writes  with  this  partisanship,  for  it  tends, 
a  priori,  to  prejudice  the  validity  of  his 
arguments.  Before  speaking  of  England 
and  Germany  explicitly,  he  mentions  that  it 
is  open  to  man  to  develop  his  gregariousness 
along  either  the  wolf,  the  sheep,  or  the  bee 
plan.     Man,  then,  is  potentially  capable  of 


GKEGARIOUSNESS  69 

all  three  types  and,  it  is  safe  to  assume,  has 
all  three  latent  in  him.    We  can  get  much 
from   Trotter  if  we  accept  his   aggressive 
type  as  expressing  those  elements  in  the 
gregariousness  of  man  which  tend  towards 
war.     Sheep  never  fight,  bees  sting  merely 
to  repel  attacks.    It  is  only  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the   bee   type   that  mankind   can 
progress.     The  swarm  has  the  focus  of  the 
hive,  in  which  all  interest  is  centred,  and  the 
co-ordination  of  function  is  such  that  no 
individualism    is   possible.     What   Trotter 
terms    "intercommunication"    among    the 
units  is  developed  to  its  highest  point.    This 
he  aptly  compares  to  the  cell  colony  that 
develops  into  the  metazoic  type  of  animal. 
No  one  thinks  of  the  welfare  of  the  indi- 
vidual cell  in  a  multi-cellular  animal.    The 
advance  of  the  bee-hive  is  not  determined 
by  subjugation  of  other  hives  or  species,  but 
by   more   effective   industry.      This   would 
make  an  ideal  national  type. 


70      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

It  is  now  a  fairly  well  recognised  fact  that 
in  the  study  of  psychopathic  states  the 
observation  of  the  conduct  and  utterances  of 
the  patient  will  betray  much  of  his  innate 
mental  constitution,  and  also  show  what  was 
the  underlying  personal  significance  of  the 
events  which  disturbed  his  balance.  Our 
material  on  the  psychology  of  war  is,  there- 
fore, not  complete  until  we  have  made  more 
of  a  survey  of  the  phenomena  of  war.  These 
are,  of  course,  legion,  and  only  a  few  can  be 
considered  here  and,  at  that,  in  generalities. 
The  external  changes  in  the  life  of  the  mass 
and  of  the  individual  do  not  demand  com- 
ment— ^that  is  the  sphere  of  the  economist. 
Our  problem  is  to  discover  the  mental 
changes  of  the  nation  and  the  citizen. 

Of  the  national  changes  the  added  cohe- 
siveness  and  unity  is  a  commonplace.  What 
has  been  a  vague  conception  of  flag  or  king 
becomes  a  living  entity.  The  herd  crowds 
closer   together.     All   the   departments  of 


GKEGARIOUSNESS  71 

Government  become  more  co-ordinate;  the 
claims  of  smaller  groups,  such  as  labour, 
capital,  and  political  parties  are  allowed  to 
lapse  in  the  presence  of  the  need  of  the  large 
groups.  A  much-needed  reform,  long 
blocked  by  the  obstinacy  of  some  small  class, 
can  be  instituted  without  opposition.  In 
short,  internal  problems  almost  cease  to 
exist,  not  merely  in  relation  to  the  magni- 
tude of  the  external  problems,  but  abso- 
lutely. The  factors  of  sectional  rivalry  and 
jealousy  have  disappeared,  or,  at  least,  tend 
to  do  so.  National  conscience  is  both  quick- 
ened and  perverted.  The  action  of  the 
enemy  or  of  individual  enemy  citizens  is 
judged  to  be  wicked  regardless  of  the  merits 
of  the  case,  while  individual  frivolities  and 
indiscretions  of  fellow-citizens  come  to  be 
looked  on  almost  as  treason.  The  people 
press  a  debt  of  the  individual  whose  payment 
is  never  expected  in  times  of  peace.  Trotter 
observed  in  England  some  less  obvious  signs 


72      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

pf  a  quickening  of  the  herd  instinct.  The 
first  reaction  was  of  vague  fear.  This  did 
not  necessarily  confine  itself  to  fears  for  the 
safety  of  the  country  as  a  whole,  but  was 
transferred  to  ridiculous,  petty  anxieties. 
With  this  was  an  intolerance  of  isolation. 
Men  could  not  bear  to  be  alone,  and,  follow- 
ing the  instinct  for  members  of  the  herd  to 
(  be  in  actual  contact,  class  barriers  were 
\j3roken  down.  Most  interesting  was  the  wild- 
fire spread  and  credulity  of  rumours,  that 
form  of  mental  contagion  which  owes  its 
existence  to  herd  suggestion.  Finally,  every 
foreign-looking  person  was  looked  on  with 
suspicion.  This  last,  coupled  with  the  open 
hatred  of  individual  foes,  gives  us  a  beautiful 
analogy  with  the  psychosis.  The  uncon- 
scious idea  that  the  foreigner  belongs  to  a 
rival  species  becomes  a  conscious  belief  that 
he  is  a  pestiferous  type  of  animal. 

All    the    above,    with    the    exception    of 
rumour,  fear,  and  senseless  suspicion,  are 


GREGARIOUSNESS  73 

gains  for  the  nation  as  siicli.  National  con- 
sciousness is  a  large  part  of  that  vision  with- 
out which  the  people  perish,  and  it  is  quite 
possible  that  the  essential  victory  rests  with 
that  people  whose  national  morale  emerges 
intact  from  the  war.  I  once  had  occasion 
to  meet  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  of  the 
Boer  generals,  and  took  the  opi)ortunity  to 
ask  him  why  the  Boers  had  not  yielded  to 
the  British  demands  instead  of  attempting 
the  impossible.  He  replied  that  they  all 
knew  their  relative  impotence,  but  that  to 
have  capitulated  would  have  meant  the  for- 
feiture of  their  national  self-respect,  so  they 
chose  to  fight  against  impossible  odds.  We 
can  now  begin  to  see  the  result  of  this  de- 
cision. Their  individual  losses  were  enor- 
mous, but  nationally  they  are  probably 
better  off.  They  have  as  good  a  Government 
or  better;  they  are  part  of  a  larger  civilisa- 
tion (to  which  they  owe  ready  allegiance)  ; 
they  are  not  a  subject  race  in  fact  or  feeling. 


74      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

One  thing  is  altered:  the  Vierkleur  is  re- 
placed by  the  Union  Jack.  But  that  of  which 
the  flag  was  a  symbol  has  not  been  destroyed. 
In  fact,  it  has  probably  grown.  Had  the  two 
States  capitulated  a  Boer  would  not  now, 
in  the  eyes  of  Europe  and  America,  be  a  citi- 
zen of  the  world,  but  only  a  semi-savage 
frontiersman.  Did  the  Boers  really  lose  the 
war? 

The  effects  of  war  on  the  nation  as  a  whole 
have  still  more  interesting  results  on  the 
mental  reactions  of  the  individual.  We  are 
accustomed  to  think  of  energy  being  largely 
a  product  of  personal  ambition.  The  in- 
dividual in  war  time  couples  self-abnegation 
with  unwonted  energ}^  His  interests  change : 
his  pride  tends  to  be  centred  less  on  the 
eminence  of  himself  and  family,  but  more  on 
what  he  and  they  can  do  for  the  country. 
A  man  no  longer  strives  to  outwit  his  neigh- 
bour in  business,  but  rather  to  outdo  him  in 
patriotism.    An  exhibition  of  generosity  or 


GEEGARIOUSNESS  75 

altruism  that  merits  a  sneer  from  many 
quarters  in  times  of  peace  becomes  an  incen- 
tive, an  example  to  copy.  Herd  suggestion 
constantly  reinforces  the  spirit  of  self-sacri- 
fice in  the  interests  of  the  herd.  These 
statements  must  not,  of  course,  be  taken  as 
indicating  constant  results.  If  all  the  citi- 
zens of  any  country  responded  to  the  full 
along  these  lines,  the  concerted  energy  of 
that  herd  would  probably  make  it  infinitely 
stronger  than  any  other  nation.  As  in  all 
psychological  matters,  we  can  only  consider 
tendencies.  It  is  frequently  stated  that  war 
awakens  a  feeling  for  the  essential  realities 
of  life.  In  the  face  of  the  astounding  per- 
versions of  truth  which  characterise  every 
war,  this  statement  must  be  delimited.  More 
accurately  one  could  say  that  a  vaguely  felt 
standard  of  conduct — to  act  in  best  inter- 
ests of  the  herd — becomes  a  vital,  conscious 
rule  of  life,  and  keener  criticism  is  directed 
by  each  individual  to  see  if  his  conduct  fol- 


76      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

lows  this  rule.    As  a  corollary  to  this,  self- 
deceptions  may  tend  to  disappear.  The  more 
or    less    conscious    delusions    of    grandeur 
which  actuate  so  many  people  are  apt  to 
fail  in  the  emergency  of  war.    Probably  the 
more  fundamental  of  such  ideas — the  im- 
portance of  one's  individual  life — is  the  one 
that  is  most  conspicuously  shattered.     In 
^-^e  article  by  Freud,  already  quoted,  there 
is  considerable  discussion  of  our  attitude 
towards  death.    He  shows  that  normally  we 
are  continually  handicapped  by  our  insin- 
cerities about  death  and  fears  of  it  in  our- 
selves and  others.  There  is  no  more  beautiful 
proof  that  a  nation  at  war  acts  as  a  species 
struggling  for  existence  than  the  fact  that 
individual  deaths  do  not  matter  either  to  the 
mass  or  to  the  individual  himself.  Trotter's 
comparison  to  the  multicellular  animal  is 
peculiarly  apt  in  this  connection.  If  we  find 
ourselves  in  a  situation  of  danger  we  are  not 
conscious  of  any  fear  for  hand  or  eye  or 


GREGARIOUSNESS  77 

body,  but  for  ourselves  as  a  whole.  Neither 
the  wolf  in  the  pack  nor  the  bee  in  the  swarm 
has  thought  for  its  own  safety.  As  Trotter 
points  out,  mass  formation  gains  psycho- 
logically perhaps  more  than  it  does  tacti- 
cally. It  seems  to  me  not  impossible  that 
the  success  of  military  training  consists  es- 
sentially in  the  acquisition  of  the  herd 
spirit,  the  gain  of  a  feeling  that  the  herd  is 
always  present,  even  if  it  be  only  in  imagina- 
tion. When  this  is  accomplished  the  prodi- 
gies of  devotion  and  self-immolation,  which 
are  a  commonplace  of  mass  formation,  can 
become  possible  individually.  The  essen- 
tial victory  in  war  rests  with  that  nation 
which  has  the  largest  number  of  citizens 
unconsciously  and  constantly  aware  of  the 
presence  of  the  herd,  fighting  or  travailling 
alone,  perhaps,  but  hearing  always  the  voice 
of  their  choir  invisible. 


CHAPTER   IV 

CORRELATION   OF   PRIMITIVE   INSTINCTS   WITH 
GREGARIOUSNESS 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  recapitulate. 
In  so  far  as  one  can  generalise  about  such 
a  protean  affair  as  war,  there  are  two  great 
groups  of  phenomena.  In  the  first  come  vio- 
lence in  the  form  of  killing  fellow  beings, 
purposeful  destruction  of  property,  injury 
to  the  rival  trade  and  deception  of  the 
enemy.  These  are  all  "legitimate''  in  war. 
With  these  there  always  occur  "atrocities" 
in  the  form  of  wanton  destruction,  loot,  and 
the  indulgence  of  brutal  passion  on  the  bod- 
ies of  the  enemy  combatant  and  non-com- 
batant alike,  phenomena  more  apt  to  pre- 
ponderate in  one  country  but  probably  pres- 
ent in  all  armies.    The  latter  are  openly  or 

78 


COKRELATION  79 

tacitly  encouraged  or,  at  least,  condoned  by 
each  belligerent.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
is  a  group  of  phenomena  evidencing  a  stim- 
ulus to  the  nation  at  war,  causing  greater 
cohesiveness,  greater  energy,  marvellous 
self-abnegation  on  the  part  of  individuals, 
extinction  of  all  that  is  a  sham  in  life,  but 
with  it  all  a  loss  of  capacity  to  sympathise 
with  a  foreign  view-point  that  amounts  to 
an  intellectual  stultification. 

There  are,  also,  two  schools  of  dynamic 
psychology  that  attempt  answers  to  this  rid- 
dle. One  says  that  primitive,  anti-social 
human  instincts  still  exist  unconsciously  in 
the  make-up  of  all  "civilised''  beings,  that 
they  are  constantly  striving  for  an  outlet 
which  the  conditions  of  war  allow.  The 
second  school  say  that  man  is  by  instinct 
a  herd  animal,  and  that  as  such  he  forms 
groups  to  which  he  owes  a  blind  allegiance, 
more  complete  than  is  generally  thought  and 
always  including  an  instinctive  hostility  to 


80      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

that  which  is  outside  the  national  group. 
/  When  the  group  develops  an  aggressive  type 
(of  gregariousness  war  is  imminent.  Signifi- 
cantly, each  school  in  its  argument  leaves 
one  set  of  phenomena  severely  alone.  As  far 
as  each  goes,  the  argument  seems  sound ;  can 
they  be  reconciled,  or  are  they  mutually  ex- 
clusive? 

To  answer  this  we  must  leave  the  question 
of  war  for  a  moment  and  turn  to  a  considera- 
tion of  the  fundamentals  of  dynamic  psy- 
chology. Freud  and  Trotter  are  probably 
the  only  two  psychologists  who  have  initi- 
ated hypotheses  that  are  not  essentially 
tautological,  so  only  psycho-analysis  and 
herd  instinct  need  be  seriously  considered. 
The  teaching  of  Freud  is  that  civilisation 
has  forced  upon  man  a  "repression''  of  primi- 
tive instincts  whose  operation  is  unconscious 
but  always  the  dominant,  dynamic  prin- 
ciple of  life.  Trotter,  on  the  other  hand, 
insists  that  man  is  by  nature  gregarious, 


CORRELATION  81 


and  impelled  by  instinct  to  serve  the  herd 
and  assimilate  his  conduct  and  thought  with 
that  of  his  fellows.  The  irrationalities  and 
mental  disabilities  of  man  he  ascribes  to  the 
conflict  between  his  actual  experience  and  / 
what  the  herd  bids  him  believe.  In  short, 
one  may  say  that  psycho-analysis  deals  with 
individualistic  motivation,  while  herd  in- 
stinct is  a  study  of  social  instinct.  From  our 
studies  of  the  psychoses  and  the  wealth  of 
psycho-analytic  material  that  appears  there- 
in it  has  become  increasingly  plain  that 
what  psycho-analysis  terms  "repression"  is 
the  work  of  an  instinct  (or  group  of  in- 
stincts) only  part  of  whose  work  is  repres- 
sion. The  other  task  of  this  instinctive 
force  is  to  augment  the  individualistic  un- 
conscious instinct  when  it  is  symbolised  in  a 
form  that  is  socially  acceptable.  This  is  the 
essence  of  the  dynamic  structure  of  a  "sub- 
limation.'' The  proof  of  this  cannot  be 
given  here,  but  I  might  mention  that  the 


82      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

elation  and  energy  of  the  manic  state  seem 
to  be  regularly  accompanied  by  ideas  that 
represent  a  fusion  of  individualistic  and 
social  tendencies.  As  I  pointed  out  in  re- 
viewing Trotter's  original  papers,*  his  herd 
instinct  is  probably  nothing  more  or  less 
than  the  force  behind  the  psycho-analytic 
"repressions.'^  Trotter,  in  a  sympathetic 
critique  of  psycho-analysis  in  his  book, 
comes  to  the  same  conclusion.  Presumably, 
therefore,  the  two  theories  supplement  one 
another.  Psycho-analysts  (at  least  the 
Viennese  school)  have  always  seen  in  con- 
vention and  education  the  influences  that 
cause  repression,  but  have  denied  any  dyna- 
mic value  to  them.  Trotter  shows  conclu- 
sively, however,  that  man  accepts  tradition, 
convention  and  ethical  education  because  he 
is  instinctively  forced  so  to  do  by  his  grega- 
rious nature.  There  are,  perhaps,  some 
moral  repugnances  that  are  common  to  all 


^Psychiatric  Bulletin,  Vol.  I,  No.  1 


COKEELATION  83 

mankind,  but  the  majority  of  them  are  es- 
sentially tribal  in  origin.  As  Stevenson 
says :  ^'The  canting  moralist  tells  us  of  right 
and  wrong;  and  we  look  abroad,  even  on  the 
face  of  our  small  earth,  and  find  them  change 
with  every  climate,  and  no  country  where 
some  action  is  not  honoured  as  a  virtue  and 
none  where  it  is  not  branded  as  a  vice ;  and 
we  look  in  our  experience  and  find  no  vital 
congruity  in  the  wisest  rules,  but  at  the 
best  a  municipal  fitness."  This  "municipal 
fitness'^  determines  (with  all  its  accidents) 
the  moral  standard.  It  may  be  a  law  at 
which  our  intellect  rebels,  but  we  obey  it, 
because  obedience  to  its  mandates  is  what 
keeps  the  herd  together.  What  there  is  of 
the  "brotherhood  of  man''  in  us  determines 
the  fundamental  consistency  of  moral 
standards  the  civilised  world  over.  One's 
adherence  to  the  standard  of  conduct  of 
ideal  civilisation,  national  advantage,  or 
union  expedience  will  depend  on  the  relative 


84      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

appeal  each  makes  to  tlie  gregariousness  in 
the  man.  One's  conscience  is,  then,  not  a 
stable  thing,  but  as  variable  as  the  exigencies 
of  the  group  to  which  allegiance  is  auto- 
matically given.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to 
state  that  the  man  of  real  moral  greatness 
is  he  who  is  loyal  to  mankind  as  a  whole, 
rather  than  to  some  smaller  group. 

We  are  finally  in  a  position  to  summarise 
what  suggestions  can  be  made  as  to  the  psy- 
chology of  war.  It  is  the  natural  outcome 
of  fundamental  human  tendencies.  Man  by 
his  gregarious  nature  is  doomed  to  split  up 
into  groups,  and  these  groups  behave  bio- 
logically as  if  they  were  separate  species 
struggling  for  existence.  Thanks  to  his  herd 
instinct,  which  makes  man  accept  the 
opinions  of  those  immediately  around  him — 
herd,  or  "mob,"  suggestion — only  that  seems 
to  be  right  which  is  done  by  his  group,  and 
an  abnormal  suspicion  of  the  acts  of  other 
groups  develops.    Thus  a  state  of  antagon- 


COHRELATION  85 

ism  develops  which  is  much  augmenteds^b^, 
the  aggressive  tendency   latent  in  human  ^" 
gregariousness.    The  antagonism  is  cumula- 
tive, so  that  sooner  or  later  a  state  of  ex- 
treme tension  is  reached.     At  this  point.  \ 
when  action  of  some  sort  seems  imperative, 
the  primitive,  unconscious  instincts  of  man 
assert  themselves  (as  they  constantly  t-end 
to  do),  and  the  herd,  finding  in  this  a  ready 
weapon,  relaxes  its  ban,  making  of  blood 
lust  a  virtue.    Suddenly  the  individualistic 
and  social  tendencies  find  themselves  worfe^ 
ing  hand  in  hand — essentially  a  sublimation  ^  i 
— and  war  with  its  tremendous  energy  is  un- 
leashed.    The  behaviour  of  both  the  mass 
and  the  individual  then  demonstrates  that 
the  herd  is  playing  the  role  of  a  species 
struggling  for  existence.,    It  cannot  be  ob- 
jected that  war  is  merely  the  business  of 
soldiers.    Every  citizen,  male  or  female,  has 
a  share  in  the  spirit  of  war.    All  suffer  a 
diminution  of  egoism,  with  an  added  con- 


86      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

sciousness  of  the  state,  and  all  feel  the  satis- 
faction of  a  blood  lust,  whether  it  be  gained 
by  jabbing  a  bayonet  or  devouring  descrip- 
tions of  carnage  in  the  enemy's  trenches.  It 
must  not  be  thought  that  the  repression  of 
these  primitive  tendencies  is  easily  lifted. 
There  is  a  feeling  of  horror  quite  different 
from  fear  when  a  nation  is  on  the  brink  of 
war,  although  with  it,  some  thoughtful  in- 
trospectionists  admit,  can  be  detected  a 
"something"  which  seems  to  hope  that  war 
will  come.  This  "something,"  like  the  fas- 
cination of  a  horrible  spectacle,  is,  of 
course,  the  unconscious  wish.  When  it  has 
come  as  close  to  consciousness  as  this,  its 
shadow,  as  it  were,  being  seen,  war  is  truly 
imminent,  for  now  the  herd  antagonism  is 
mightily  augmented  by  the  primitive  pas- 
sion for  violence.  The  repressing  force 
which  colours  war  with  horror,  makes  it  dif- 
ficult to  kill  the  first  man,  and  keeps  the  citi- 
zen at  home  from  relishing  the  tales  of  car- 


COKRELATION  87 

nage  until  he  is  "used  to  it" — this  force  can 
probably  be  related  to  that  loyalty  we  have 
to  the  larger  herd,  all  mankind.  At  such  a 
time  as  this,  with  almost  the  whole  w^orld 
w^eltering  in  blood,  it  seems  hard  to  believe 
in  the  strength  of  this  wider  allegiance.  Yet 
it  asserts  itself  with  greater  strength  at  the 
close  of  every  great  war,  as  the  revulsion 
from  bloodshed  lasting  through  generations 
bears  witness.* 

*An  application  of  this  principle  of  "sublimation" 
in  war  may  turn  out  to  be  of  prime  importance  from. 
a  military  standpoint.  It  is  a  psycho-analj^ic  truism 
that  before  every  neurosis  develops  some  sublimation 
is  broken  dovi^n  or  its  outlet  denied  by  external  cir- 
cumstance. The  intense  strain  of  modern  warfare 
is  an  ideal  agency  for  wearing  down  the  natural 
stability  of  a  man,  and  so  favouring  the  development 
of  a  neurosis.  To  counteract  this  strain  there  must 
"be  a  satisfaction  in  the  work  to  act  as  a  stimulus. 
The  sensitive  individual  who  cannot  develop  pleasure 
in  killing — to  put  the  matter  brutally — is  bound  to 
"be  the  victim  of  a  double  strain,  and  quickly  devel- 
ops an  unconquerable  hatred  of  his  task  that  will 
soon  lead  to  fear.  Once  fear  appears,  surrender  or 
illness  is  the  only  escape.  Before  either  refuge  is 
Bought,  however,   the   soldier   is  not   only   inefficient 


88      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

What  of  the  future?  As  this  essay  shows, 
psychology  can  give  suggestions  as  to  what 
seem  to  be  the  factors  underlying  the  phe- 
nomena of  war,  and  these  only  in  generali- 
ties. Naturally,  then,  more  caution  is  neces- 
sary in  discussing  remedies,  and  they  can 
only  be  given  in  vague  hints. 

It  is  a  doctrine  of  a  psychology,  as  it  is  of 
common  sense,  that  things  exist  for  the  good 
there  is  in  them,  not  for  the  bad.  Thera- 
peutics must  always  take  this  into  consider- 
ation. Rational  treatment  aims  at  estab- 
lishing stability  by  satisfying  with  substi- 

himself ,  but  serves  as  a  focus  of  contagion ;  infecting 
his  fellows  with  fear  and  breaking  down  the  morale 
of  his  group.  A  comparatively  brief  examination  by 
a  competent  psychiatrist  of  any  soldier  complaining- 
of  initial  difficulties  would  often  be  sufficient  to  dis- 
cover the  measure  of  adaptability  of  the  man  to  his 
task.  If  that  were  thought  to  be  limited,  frequent 
reliefs  from  active  duty  would  enable  him  to  continue 
as  a  soldier  indefinitely.  It  is  a  much  easier  matter 
to  prevent  a  neurosis  of  this  type  than  to  cure  it- 
By  such  means  as  these  a  psychologist  can  be  of  ines- 
timable value  to  an  army,  for  there  is  nothing  more 
vital  than  its  morale. 


CORRELATION  89 

tutes  the  need  to  which  the  baneful  dis- 
turbance was  an  answer.  As  far  as  man's 
primitive  cravings  are  concerned,  the  sug- 
gestions of  James,  made  more  specific  by 
Jones,  seem  excellent.  Our  social  constitu- 
tions must  be  made  more  elastic,  so  as  to 
give  more  outlet  to  individualistic  impulses, 
in  order  that  the  latter  may  not  be  dammed 
up  and  form  a  reservoir  of  potential  vio- 
lence always  ready  to  burst  its  floodgates. 
In  times  of  peace  we  revert  to  the  illusions 
that  hold  individual  lives  to  be  supremely 
valuable,  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  hazard 
is  too  far  removed  from  us  for  permanent 
national  health.  A  national  conscription 
for  the  undertaking  of  dangerous  engineer- 
ing feats  would  probably  never  be  instituted 
by  any  democracy,  yet  the  scores  of  lives  lost 
in  such  a  way  would  be  cheap  in  comparison 
with  the  devastations  of  war. 

In  approaching  the  question  of  the  future 
of  international  relationships  apart  from 


90      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

actual  war,  certain  possibilities  must  be 
kept  in  mind.  If  war  is  a  struggle  for  exist- 
ence between  what  are  essentially  rival 
species,  the  preservation  of  what  is  most 
vital  to  a  nation — national  morale — is  the 
correct  criterion  of  success  or  failure  in  the 
war.  In  comparison  with  the  loss  of  this, 
physical  impoverishment  may  be  almost  dis- 
regarded. Much  antagonism  to  war  on  the 
part  of  fervid  "patriots"  is  the  individual 
fear  or  horror  of  personal  loss  or  injury, 
and,  of  course,  in  this  case  the  imagination 
of  the  horror  is  the  potent  factor.  From  the 
standpoint  of  the  nation,  as  such,  war  is  pos- 
sibly often  a  good  thing.  Some  nations,  e.g, 
the  German  Empire,  or  the  United  States, 
were  born  of  war.  We  certainly  know  of 
no  other  stimulus  which  can  so  vivify  and 
cement  a  nation.  From  the  standpoint  of 
common  humanity,  however,  war  is  an  un- 
mitigated scourge.  The  question,  then, 
should,    perhaps,   be   put:    "Do    we    want 


CORRELATION  91 

nations?''  rather  than,  "Do  we  want  to 
abolish  war?"  It  could  be  well  argued  that 
there  is  little  cohesiveness  in  any  large 
modern  nation  beyond  the  wars  both  pres- 
ent, potential  and  in  tradition.  In  the  face 
of  man's  inveterate  tendency  to  form  into 
herds  it  seems  folly  to  talk  of  a  reconstruc- 
tion of  human  society  without  national  di- 
yisions.  A  working  conception  of  common 
humanity  to  which  loyalty  could  be  devoted 
is  certainly  too  ambitious  a  program  for 
the  human  mind  at  its  present  development. 
If  nations  were  abolished  by  common  con- 
sent they  would  reappear  with  another 
name,  just  as,  if  armaments  were  abol- 
ished, people  would  probably  fight  with 
clubs  and  stones.  If  nations  are,  then,  to 
exist,  and  not  be  a  menace  to  all  mankind, 
some  substitute  for  war  must  be  found 
which  will  give  cohesiveness  to  the  herd,  but 
at  the  same  time  not  detract  from  the  ley- 


2      THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR 

alty  of  its  citizens  to  that  larger  group,  the 
human  race. 

It  must  be  obvious  from  all  that  has  been 
said  that  war  is  an  outcome  of  the  deepest 
^' lying  of  human  forces,  and  therefore  some- 
thing which  cannot  be  altered  by  legislation 
nor  agreement  any  more  than  a  man  can  be 
kept  sane  either  by  force  or  by  promise.  In- 
stinct is  stronger  than  reason.  And  war  is 
not  an  isolated  phenomenon  unrelated  to 
other  human  tendencies..  It  is  the  habit  of 
amateur  statesmen  to  offer,  by  preference, 
remedies  for  the  largest  problems.  When 
lynch  law,  class  hatred,  strikes  with  violence 
and  lockouts  with  starvation  are  things  of 
the  past,  then,  and  then  only,  may  w^e  hope 
that  man  is  becoming  a  peace-loving  animal. 
In  the  meantime,  psychology  can  offer  one 
ray  of  hope.  Instincts  triumph  over  reason, 
but  largely  because  instincts  act  uncon- 
sciously. When  man  is  so  educated  as  to 
know  himself  and  recognise  the  forces  that 


CORRELATION  93 

are  within  him,  lie  will  be  in  a  position  to 
see  the  way  his  footsteps  lead,  and  change 
his  path — if  he  wills. 


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